Science & Legend
by belletylers
Summary: Hundreds of years of time and space, and never did it occur to the Doctor that magic, of all things, could be the one thing standing in between him and all he has lost. Collab with rumpleswagskin.
1. Chapter 1

They had guarded the town hall.

They had always guarded the town hall; two identical, grey, dusty old statues, stained by weather and wear, on either side of the tall mahogany doors. Long, thin arms extended from their shoulders, palms facing skyward, covering their eyes. Eyes that were colourless, and stared at nothing, at no one. If not for the emptiness of their stares, one might even think they were in prayer. Each one had a floor-length robe sculpted onto their bodies, secured at the waist by a thin cord. Great, feathered wings grew from their backs, suspended mid-flight. And, like all statues, they did not move.

Until now, at least.

She notices their absence even in her peripheral vision. Belle takes several paces backward, until she is standing directly in front of the now unguarded doorway. No one walks in or out of the doors today, or most days, unless there is an event or an urgent town meeting. Carefully, she circles the entryway a few times, staring at the empty space where the statues had once and always stood, studying it as if it were an optical illusion. Or, perhaps, wondering if they had ever been there at all. After all, why would a statue go missing? They bore no plaques of honour, no names in memory – they were just there. Always. Nobody was hurt by them disappearing. In fact, passers-by seldom even noticed their absence. What would anybody want with them?

Belle stops pacing when the hairs on the back of her neck begin to prickle. She senses somebody watching her. She looks over her shoulder and sees Archie out with Pongo. He wears the same curious face that she does – it's why they get along so well. Mutual curiosity is a powerful thing.

"It's not just me, is it?" Belle asks, sure that someone as philosophical as Archie will agree with her.

"No, no it's not," he replies comfortingly, biting his lip. He leans slightly on his umbrella in thought. The disappearance makes him feel uneasy, almost. Then again, so did the mysterious statues in the first place. What do you make of it, Belle?"

"I don't know. Why would somebody move those heavy statues? And how could they have done it without anybody noticing?" She's perplexed, her hands on her hips.  
>Archie purses his lips in thought. "Why do you assume somebody's taken them?"<p>

She scoffs, the suggestion ludicrous in her mind. "Well, isn't it obvious? Statues don't just move themselves."

He shrugs. "It's unlikely, yes. But remember where you are. Storybrooke is perhaps the most unlikely place in all the realms, capable of holding magic in a world that does not tolerate it. It exists in spite of itself, in spite of its curse being broken and its residents being entirely from another world. I wouldn't go so far as to say that statues don't move."

Belle is silent for a moment, taking in his words. Eventually, he just turns and ushers Pongo in the general direction of his office.  
>"But where would they go?" she shouts at him. He does not reply, just twirls his umbrella absentmindedly and begins to whistle an unfamiliar tune.<p>

She combs through pages and pages of knowledge when she arrives at the library. In the past, books have almost always held the answer, but this is different. She has learned that books can solve almost any mystery if you read the right one. She hopes that she has the right one in her possession.

Her books mention gargoyles and gravestones and monuments and sculptures, but none of them have a hidden agenda, and none of them spontaneously disappear.  
>"Gargoyles," she reads aloud to herself, enjoying the sound of her words bouncing back at her in the emptiness, "are creatures that have been known to adorn old buildings such as libraries, meeting halls, bell towers and places of worship for centuries. They are statues that mostly possess grotesque faces with snouts and sharp teeth. They are fitted with spouts and used to prevent rainwater from travelling down the walls of structures."<p>

They do all these things without ever moving. They stay right in their place, just like they're supposed to. She continues reading:

"There are some legends, instances in which witnesses have claimed that the gargoyles can speak, but this remains unproven and largely disbelieved." Belle frowns.  
>"So they can speak, but they can't run away?"<p>

Hours in, and she's not certain why she's so fixated on this, but she senses something odd about this whole thing. Especially Archie's comment, and the utter lack of factual information. Is she seeing conspiracies that are not actually there?

Belle closes the book with a heavy thud and sighs, running a hand through her hair. Maybe she is just imagining it, and maybe there is a simple explanation. Her stomach grumbles and she rubs it impatiently. She hasn't eaten all morning, and she'll be here for hours longer, for her research has messed up what little organisational system the books had.

Half-heartedly, she lifts a stack of three thick encyclopaedias and carries them over to the chest-high shelf they came from, turning her back to the window.

The window outside which stands a stone-like figure, with its hands no longer covering its eyes.

She places each book in its exact place, even ensuring (albeit pointlessly) that the spines of the books stand flat beside each other. She runs her finger along the shelf, collecting only minute amounts of dust in her wake and, satisfied, turns around to tend to the fiction section.  
>She barely takes a step before freezing.<p>

One of the statues, eyes hollow and haunting, bore into hers from outside the window and she lets out a panicked shriek, clamping her hand over her mouth in shock. Her chest heaves, inhaling and exhaling rapidly, and once her heart rate has settled, she heads for the door, watching the statue all the time.  
>This has to be a trick, she thinks. Somebody must just be trying to scare me.<p>

Its once expressionless face is pressed up against the window, and though it's just stone, she is almost certain she sees a predator where she did not before. She could have sworn it had its eyes covered, but now it looks right at her, its face expressionless and yet terrifying. Its hands have remained in the same position – only its head has moved, as if it had spotted her and now ceases to move its gaze from its target.

With careful, reluctant side-steps, she heads for the door, feeling entrapped all of a sudden. She needs to get out. She needs to run. She needs help.  
>Belle crosses the threshold from the inside of the library to the outside and nearly trips on her heels, for though her eyes follow the statue, by the time the door has stopped obstructing her view, its position is different again. One of its arms has lifted to shoulder height and is extended fully in her direction, one long, clawed finger pointing straight at her. Its mouth is open the slightest bit, wrinkling the texture of its face and showing a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs. Its wings are spread just a little wider, ready to unfurl fully and take flight.<p>

Too scared to move, to run, to even look away, she blindly reaches into her coat pocket, fumbling for her phone. She does not know who she hopes to call – Rumple? Emma? She curses to herself, because she finds nothing, and notes that she must have left it on the counter inside. Droplets of sweat start to form at her brow and she feels utterly paralysed. Her knowledge is failing her, and that's mostly because she has none. She doesn't know what this thing is, or how to get rid of it. All she knows is that she's scared, and that this thing, whatever it is, is going to move the second she looks away. She knows it is going to come for her.

Oh, and there is one more thing she knows: over the statue's shoulder, in the corner of her sight, she knows there is a man, a tall man, with a brown pinstripe suit, wild, unruly hair and long legs pumping as fast as they can to get to her. He is calling out to her.

"RUN!"

"It's – it's after me!" Belle protests, her hands shaking. She squeezes them into fists, trying to suppress her fear.

"It won't move, I promise! Just go!" the man replies, stopping a little way down the road. He's panting, and she wonders how far he has run. Still, she stays frozen in place. He resumes his running then, and within moments, he's closer to her than the angel is, coming between them.

"Every time I look away, it gets closer," she tells him, her voice quivering uncontrollably. "What is it?"

"It's trouble," the man replies, edging closer to her, trying very hard not to startle her. Very gently, he places a warm hand on her shoulder, his mouth close to her ear.  
>She gasps at the touch. "Now go."<p>

She's never seen him before in her life, but for some unearthly, unknowable reason, she believes him. She kicks off her stilettos, picks them up with one hand, and sprints along the main street, ripping the feet of her stockings to shreds.

Belle rounds a corner, heart thumping in the most liberating yet horrifying way, when she comes to such a sudden halt that her feet begin to bleed and her knees give, and she falls backwards onto the pavement, her hands barely steadying her. For right in front of her, mouth wide open like a creature about to engulf its pray, and claws extended ready to swipe, the other missing statue stands.

She scrambles to her feet and staggers backward, hurrying back in the direction she came from. She keeps her eyes on the creature the whole time, and yet when she blinks it only grows closer and more menacing. But how? Nothing of this world – or any that she knows of, for that matter – can move that quickly.  
>She's quickly losing her sense of direction, so she calls out hopefully to the man in the pinstriped suit. "I … I found the other one!"<p>

"Oh, good," he replies, his voice low and tinged with just the slightest hint of sarcasm. From how well she hears him, she deduces that he can't be more than a few feet away.

With one last step, she collides into his the side of his body.

"Sorry," she mutters.

"I thought I told you to run," he says, holding up a metallic device with a blue light on the end of it like it was a loaded pistol.

"That didn't really work out," she replies.

"Right, well, since you're here." He clicks his tongue in thought. See over there – don't look away – on that block diagonal from us, what's there?"

Belle squints, both in confusion and because her eyes sting from staring. "I a park."

"Describe it," he orders.

"Why?"

"Because if I'm right, you're about to witness one of my very good ideas," he promises. And considering the predicament they are in, she decides that might be among her best options.

"Uh, well, there are swings and a playground and in the middle there's this big white – "

"Gazebo!" he finishes for her, his voice full of glee. She's surprised just how overjoyed he is about it. "Oh, that is brilliant. Right, now tell me this: how fast can you run?"

"What?" She's too petrified and out of breath for these sorts of games.

"Around the block to the park. You come in one side, I'll come in the other."

"Again, why?"

"Have you got a better idea?"

"Right."

"Now, circle the statue till you're on the other side, and then on my count," she hears the smile forming on his face, "run for your life."

"Are you sure it will – "

He does not even let her finish the sentence. "You don't wanna know the answer to that."

She does as he says, mirroring his actions as best she can and slowly circling the statue, because he's right: she doesn't have a better idea and apparently he does.

"One!" he calls, and she gulps in mouthfuls of oxygen.

"Two!" She clenches her fists harder and bends her knees.

"Three!" They turn and they run, stone creatures right on their heels.

Belle has to turn two corners before she reaches the park, but her stature is an advantage for speed. She does not look back and that, in the end, is what helps her make it to where the dewy grass is cool on her sore feet and where the gazebo is only a few yards away. The man is running towards her and she keeps running, only barely registering his final hollered instruction.

"GET DOWN."

They reach the middle of the gazebo together, and he extends a hand to her. Breathless, she reaches out for him, and he gets her wrist, pulling her to the ground roughly. She collapses into his arms and waits for a crash, an explosion, a flicker of lights, something. But there is only nothingness. She resumes hearing the sounds of life around her – cars passing by, kids and their parents playing in the park (seemingly unfazed by their little display), and loudest of all, the sound of their harsh breaths and the reassuring thud of blood pumping through their veins.

His breath is warm, and it tickles her cheek, leaving gooseflesh. His strong arms are wrapped around her and endless moments later, she realises that her face is hidden from the danger, pressed against the right side of his chest, where she is sure that she can hear a heartbeat.

"What happened?" she asks, still trembling a little. He sits up a little straighter and momentarily releases his grip on her to adjust his tie.

"Looking at each other. That's the trick – you've got to get them looking at each other." He slowly rises to his feet and steadily pulls her up with him. "Don't touch them. Just to be safe," he warns before climbing over the edge of the gazebo and cocking his head for her to follow, which she does, shortly after dropping her shoes onto the ground to free up her hand. It's hard to do in a skirt but she manages it with some degree of grace. Or, at least, enough that the pinstriped man is impressed by it.

"I don't think we've been properly introduced," she says, combing back the windblown curls that have strayed from their styled positions, and brushing the dust and dirt from her rumpled clothes.

"Quite right," he says, extending a hand. "I'm the Doctor." Belle is fairly sure that they just risked their lives several times over, so his wide smile, too big for his face, looks terribly out of place, but in a very endearing way. She likes it. "Just the Doctor."

"Belle," she replies with a sweet expression, and his grin widens even more. Then he releases her hand and gives her a polite nod. "Well, Belle, it's been a blast, but I really must be getting back to – "

"Hold on!" she protests, her face and voice firm all of a sudden. "You're not leaving without explaining to me what those things are. And why they came to Storybrooke!"

"Storybrooke? Is that where we are?" He circles himself clumsily, looking up at the sky and frowning. He pulls the metal device from his coat pocket again and presses a switch that makes the end light up. It makes a strange noise when he does it. "Blimey, have a look at these readings! Never seen anything like it!"

Either he's deflecting, or he's actually incredibly interested, and she's not sure which, but after scraping too close to death for her liking, she's feeling particularly impatient.

"Doctor," she says, almost stunning herself at the way his name sounds on her tongue. It sounds almost familiar. "Tell me."

He looks at his bare wrist as if a watch were there, a joke which sadly flies over her head, and then shoves his hands into his pockets and exhales, puffing his cheeks out. "Oldest creatures in the Universe, those."

"You mean they're actually living creatures?" she asks, having assumed it was some form of black magic. Apparently, though, since that device of his looks hardly anything like the few wands she's encountered in her lifetime, magic is not in the Doctor's wheelhouse.

"Yep. They're called Weeping Angels. 'Cept they're not really weeping, they're just covering their eyes."  
>"Why?"<p>

"They've got this thing – call it a defense mechanism – called a quantum lock. When any living thing looks at them, they turn to stone. And you can't – "  
>It is Belle's turn to cut him off: "You can't kill a stone."<p>

He looks a little baffled. "Right. Anyway, if you get them looking at each other, it creates a cycle. They can't ever move. Just statues now, really."  
>"What do they do to you?"<p>

"They just zap you back in time and consume the energy you would have used by living. You end up living your life a century or so earlier than you were meant to. Well, I say a century but you can never really be sure. Depends on the angel. Not such a bad way to go, if you think about it, provided nothing else gets you along the way." He pauses, having rambled himself into deep thought. He shakes it off a few seconds later. "Well, best be off."

Swiftly, the Doctor begins walking away. She is immediately puzzled. "Where are you going? Doctor?" Though she cannot see it, there is a smile on his face again. He wants her to follow, and follow she does.

The Doctor heads for Granny's, which is right nearby, and walks around the building to the back entrance. She has been there before, but never has she seen what she sees now.

A tall, blue box stands proudly, its front windows lit up. The Doctor pats it almost lovingly. Across the top there is a black banner that says "POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX", and there is a light that does not flash. One white, tattered sign on the door provides what Belle assumes are instructions or information but she is too far away to read it. He leans his weight on it, crossing his legs nonchalantly.

"My, uh, means of transport. You like it?"

She does not reply, just shakes her head. "You're … a marvel, Doctor. Your heart beats on the wrong side of your chest. You take a strange blue box with you everywhere you go. You claim to know about alien races and you carry that blue thing!" Looking a little hurt, he pulls out the blue thing in question.

"It's a sonic screwdriver!" he beams at her, speaking at a rapid pace. "And I don't just claim to know a lot about alien races, I do know a lot about alien races. That strange blue box you are referring to is called the TARDIS. T-A-R-D-I-S. Stands for 'Time and Relative Dimension in Space'. It's my spaceship. Oh, and my heart? I've got two of them because I'm an alien. Any questions?"

Belle's eyes are so wide that there is white totally surrounding her irises. She tilts her head and peers at him curiously for a long while. Then, finally, she asks: "What's a sonic screwdriver?"

He lets out a guffaw. "I knew it! I knew I liked you!" She smiles girlishly and feels the faintest pink blush rise in her cheeks.  
>"What do you do in there?"<p>

"Just travel. Hop from place to place. You know, the life." He rocks back and forth on his heels.

She looks sympathetic. "And you're all on your own?" She knows what that is like. More than once since getting out of the asylum she has felt lonely. But in the end, she has Rumple, and others. He, apparently, does not.

"Don't have to be," he says, shrugging, the corner of his mouth turning upward ever so slightly.

"You … you mean … me?" Belle gestures to herself. "I … I don't understand."

"Come," he tells her. "With me. In the TARDIS." He gives the wooden box a gentle tap with the palm of his hand.

She takes a step away from him in surprise. "Why would you want me? You don't even know me. I don't even know you!"

"Oh, you will," he reassures her, grinning and twitching his eyebrows at her. She wonders just how many women he has reassured with that same grin. But then again, he did save her life.

"What makes you so sure?" There it is again, that playful nature. She wonders just how he can bring it out in her so easily.

"Don't tell me you've never looked up at the stars and wished you were up there, looking down on earth. Don't tell me you've never wanted to see whole planets come and go from existence like that." He snaps his fingers. "You could live forever in any number of days. I could show you, you know. Every supernova, every star, every species. Any time, any place. We could explore them together. If you like."

Her blank expression has transformed to one of curiosity and fantasy. She wants to trust him. She's known him barely an hour and yet she can feel his heart – hearts – reaching out to hers. A marvel he may be, but in the end, he's just another wandering soul. She could ask him any number of things – why he has two hearts, why his spaceship is a telephone box – but in the end she settles on, "Why me?"

It's important, she decides. Why choose a stranger to cheat death with across the stars?

"I knew you were one of the good ones."

"How?"

"The good ones, they listen when I tell them to run. Even if it takes a little persuasion. Pep talk, hand to hold, that kind of thing." He smiles that smile again, this time small and understated, and she laughs softly. But she says nothing. Her silence must translate to him as rejection, though, because he inhales deeply and stares at his shoes. "I mean, you could stay here. I'm sure you've got a life, a family. Such a waste, though."

"A waste of what?" she asks, almost expecting an insult.

"Heroism," he replies, and that stuns her. "You saved the town today, Belle. And let me tell you: Weeping Angels? Not exactly a minor issue. Imagine the lives you could change, across all of time and space."

Belle presses her lips together and looks over her shoulder, in the direction of the pawn shop.

"So you do have a family," he observes. "Or at least, a special someone?"

"And you have a time machine."

He tilts his chin up and frowns. "So?"

"So," she finishes, her face almost mischievous. "You can get me back here before they've got time to miss me, right?"

His cheer is loud and full. "You bet! We'll have an adventure, Belle, just you wait. And you'll be back in time for tea!" The Doctor pulls from his pocket a silver key and inserts it into the lock on the door. "Allons-y, Belle!"


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor never grows tired of this.

He watches carefully as she takes her first steps into the TARDIS, one stilettoed heel after another. Though her shoes are impossibly high, she walks lightly, and with petite elegance.

A half-gape, half-grin painted onto her face, Belle walks around herself, taking in every impossible inch surrounding her. She's seen magic stop wars and erect palaces out of dust, but never has she seen something quite like this. She studies carefully the seemingly infinite surface space, admiring the tall coral-like pillars. Her eyes fall last of all on the console, and she's immediately captivated by the pale blue glow at its core, mesmerised by its sheer power and capacity for adventure.

"Go on," he encourages, his wide smile spread over his face.

"It's . . . amazing, Doctor," she says, and for a moment, all caught up in the wonder, she looks almost like a child. He smiles at her. It's not quite the exclamation of, "it's bigger on the inside!" that he's so very used to, but it's good. It's really good.

"So," he exclaims rather suddenly, making her jump. He deftly leaps over the railing and starts pushing buttons. "Belle. Where to? When to? Any time, any place, any planet. Say the word, and it's yours."

If watching people observe the miracle of the TARDIS is his favourite part, then this has to be his second; the realisation that his companions are not simply confined to one life, one place, one planet in one linear succession of time. It's liberation from a prison they don't even realise they are in.

"Mine?" she asks, and he's sure her eyes are a little wet. Her heart speeds up at the thought – all of time and space at her disposal. Any moment from the dawn of creation to the obliteration of reality (which, frankly, she considers an inevitability). And, all of a sudden, she's overwhelmed. For the first time in her life, she could really be the hero. She could see things no one else had seen, and that no sane person would even believe, and the confinement of neither cement nor dark magic would be able to stop her this time.

He just shrugs, and his grin grows even wider. His long fingers hover expectantly over an important-looking lever, and they wiggle with anticipation.

Eventually, Belle settles on an answer. "Surprise me."

The Doctor seems to think it's the right answer, because his smile grows even wider. He waits a few seconds for the proverbial light bulb above his head but it doesn't come. He's so used to knowing just the cure for a restless soul like hers, but now, he finds himself without a clue. Not letting that stop him, he throws himself across the console and smacks his palm against the randomizer, irresistible in all its big red button-y glory.

The ship springs to life with a lurch and, caught unaware, Belle is suddenly thrown ungracefully against the console, catching herself on her hands in an attempt to avoid serious injury. She tries to get her bearings, adjusting her posture and brushing away the strands of hair that have fallen over her eyes with a huff. Turning to find the Doctor's eyes sparkling with mirth at her apparent inelegance as the ship continues its flight, Belle opens her mouth to defend herself, only for one of the heels of her outrageously high stilettos to slip between a gap in the metal flooring and knock her completely off balance yet again. The Doctor rushes to help her, abandoning the frantic routine of lever-pulling and button-pushing for only a moment to try and pull her out. In the struggle that ensues, her heel snaps. She hears it clatter to the ground below, and winces as if every bounce is a blow to her own body.

He's still holding her up when he reaches across and taps a few more buttons with his free hand, and he does it so speedily that she wonders whether it actually has any effect or whether he's just showing off.

"New shoes, then?" he asks, looking back at her, and though she is mournful in the loss of her heels, she knows that they were not entirely practical, and nods. "Wardrobe's that way. Just keep walking 'til you find it," the Doctor continues. "Should have something about your size in there somewhere."

She goes to turn away from him, then pauses. "You have women's shoes in your wardrobe, Doctor?" she asks, half teasing and half actually wanting to know. When he doesn't answer, she begins to amble toward the direction he'd indicated, her gait made drastically uneven due to about 7 inches of difference in height between her legs. The corners of the Doctor's mouth twitch upward a little; she does not take off the other heel, but walks with such vigour and determination that any doubt he could've had as to whether she'd survive a real alien battle is immediately dismissed. Not that he intends to drag her into a real alien battle, but they do seem to have a habit of finding him before he can do anything about it.

He thinks that maybe, just maybe, the aliens ought to be afraid of Belle French.

The hallway is long and masked in shadow, and when the first obstacle Belle comes to is a crossroads of sorts, she thinks that the Doctor's advice of, "just keep walking 'till you find it" had not been entirely useful. She takes the first left and passes a number of marked and unmarked doorways, most of which are locked and none of which are marked with "wardrobe" or any resemblance thereof.

After reaching yet another dead end, Belle turns around to call out to the Doctor before realizing that she's probably wandered much too far into the ship that defies the laws of physics for him to hear her. She turns back around and nearly jumps a mile in the air when upon seeing that she's now faced with a door, blank and brown and ordinary in every conceivable way except in the fact that it had most certainly not been there five seconds ago. Half curious and half on guard, Belle tries the handle to find that it swings open willingly for her, and steps inside the enigmatic room.

It looks almost like an extension of the console room, with the coral pillars ascending skyward, a snaking spiral staircase following their path. The walls are covered almost entirely in clothing, with multiple racks stacked up against each other. Moving closer to the centre of the room, Belle allows her fingers to brush idly over a leather jacket and an absurdly long knitted woollen scarf of many colours. She spots a row of shoes underneath the lowest rack of clothes. Almost all of them are men's, in varying sizes, styles and shades, but on the very end of the row there are a few pairs smaller than all the others, two of which are pink. The third pair and final pair are trainers, mostly white and streaked with a stripe of blue. They are a little worn and the laces are frayed at the ends and they are a little too big, but Belle believes they will suffice. She laces them as tightly as she can and finds that they fit her feet quite snugly, despite the fact that they don't exactly match her dress. Smiling at her reflection in the full-length mirror in satisfaction, she turns to further explore the extraordinary room and see what other strange and wonderful things she can find.

What perplexes Belle the most, she thinks, is the sheer amount of women's clothing she finds hidden in the TARDIS' depths. She passes everything from skirts and jeans to elaborate imperial dresses woven in fabrics of scarlet and gold, to even a ridiculous 50's style poodle skirt in a horrifying shade of pink. She pulls the thing off its hanger and holds it against herself, laughing as she twirls in the mirror. Starting to feel slightly lightheaded, she stops, only to find the Doctor now leaning casually in the doorway and staring at her with a solemn expression. Belle quickly regains her composure.

"Sorry if I..." she says quickly, placing the skirt back on its hanger at once. "I was just playing around a bit. I didn't mean to-"

"No, it's fine! Really," the Doctor assures her, entering the room with his hands in his pockets. "That just, erm, it belonged to a... friend of mine." He's suddenly not making eye contact with her anymore, and Belle wonders if she's encroached upon a sensitive topic. "She spun like that in it too," he murmurs quickly, almost as if he didn't mean to say it aloud. Then all of a sudden he sniffs and then he's his cheerful self once more, leaving Belle confused and full of questions. "Come on! We've got a whole planet out there waiting for us!" he exclaims.

"We do?" she asks, her eyes lighting up. "Which one? Mars? Uranus?"

"Bit further than that."

"How much further?" There's almost hesitance in her voice as she speaks.

He shoves one hand into his pocket and scratches at his jaw with the other. "Oh, about two thousand light years."

Belle is silent for a moment, overwhelmed with the sheer distance. "It takes light two thousand years to travel here from Earth and you can just materialise in a matter of seconds? What kind of man are you, Doctor?"

"Ah," he exclaims, waggling a finger at her. "Not man. Alien."

The correction doesn't throw her as much as he expects; her stance remains firm. "Right. Well, what kind of alien?"

He reaches out to her, wanting her to take his hand. "One of the good ones," he says, and he says it like a promise.

The Doctor presses his fingertips against the wooden door, gently easing it open, and taking his first steps with Belle on this new planet. Belle raises a hand to cover her eyes, squinting at the glaring light that has invaded her vision. Her other hand remains intertwined with the Doctor's, and she follows blindly where he goes as he guides her across a wide room and through a sea of people (among other things). The ceiling is high, and one curved wall is entirely transparent, a window into space. The crowds are pressed up against it, searching in the emptiness with keen eyes.

A figure approaches them, though it's out of focus in her blurred line of sight. She almost starts to panic, but the Doctor keeps a tight hold of her hand, which assuages any worries that they've stumbled into forbidden territory. She turns her head to look at him, seeing mostly the silhouette of his wild hair. The figure hands something to the Doctor, before nodding politely and seeing itself out. It is only when the creature disappears into the crowd that she notices the constant hum of sound that surrounds them – a million sounds in a million different languages.

The Doctor leans in, and carefully delivers an instruction: "Put these on," he says, pressing an object into her palm. She turns it over and sees that it's something resembling a pair of glasses. Loosening her other hand from the Doctor's, she slips them over her eyes. There's a beep, and she feels them automatically adjust to perfectly fit her skull. She is no longer blinded by the light. She looks first to the Doctor, whose glasses match hers.

"Where are we?" she asks, raising her voice above the thrum.

"Cosima 5," he answers. "Earth time, the year 2934. This particular planet has the fortunate perk of being within perfect, safe viewing distance of the orbit of Cosima's comet. She herself is a goddess worshipped for her power over light, like Apollo and the sun. The race that used to inhabit this planet believed Cosima's comet was the goddess herself, blanketing the whole world under her protection and blessing its residents. She only shoots by every . . ." he tugs on his ear, "four hundred years or so. Some see it as infants, some wait their whole lives to see it. Some die waiting."

"How many times have you seen it, Doctor?" she asks. Age is something she is good at sensing, and though his skin remains taut and his manner spritely, those are old eyes, eyes that have seen worlds burn and new lives rise from the ashes. She knows Rumple had watched centuries pass before even meeting her. She wonders how many times the goddess of light had passed him by.

He does not answer with a number. He switches topics his arm doing a wide sweeping gesture to the crowd. "All this, and you're asking about boring old me."

Before she can argue that he is anything but boring, a voice sounds over a speaker device: "Thirty minutes until the passing of Cosima. Thank you for your time."

Belle whips around, her hair flying with the motion. "Was that in English? Are humans that influential in 2934?"

"God, no," he scoffs, holding back laughter. "That's the TARDIS, that. It can translate any language inside your head. Well, almost any language."

"Almost?" questions Belle. The Doctor appears lost in thought for a few moments and when he responds it's in a disjointed mumble, almost more to himself than her.

"Oh there was this one time… planet next to a black hole... ancient writing, really ancient, mind you…" His rambling is interrupted as a sudden tremor runs through the ground and the crowd begins to chatter in excited trepidation. The crowd, Belle realizes, is made up of a lot more of an exotic bunch than she had first assumed. She can see a man whose entire form is covered in blunt spikes that flex as he moves, a woman with skin that gleams an iridescent silver, with the texture of roughly-hewn diamonds. Near her, a family of blue-hued beings with long tendrils of twisted white hair tend to a baby that fusses in its mother's arms. The sight is both magical and terrifying, and Belle isn't quite sure which instinct to act on first.

"Twenty-seven minutes until the passing of Cosima. Thank you for your time," the cool robotic voice sounds across the room once again. Belle shivers a little at its immediacy; the voice simultaneously feels as if it's all around her as well as inside her mind. The Doctor nudges her.

"Fancy a drink?" he asks, waggling his eyebrows as he looks down at her. Belle laughs, and takes his arm when he so gallantly offers it to her.

"Lead the way," she smiles widely.

As they cross the absurdly vast room, Belle catches sight of herself and the Doctor in the reflection of a nearby window and has to stop because the sight that greets her eyes is so comical. Next to the pinstripe-clad man, she appears almost childlike in height; the Doctor's lean frame stretching at least six feet to her five. One of the things she'd always found endearing about her Rumplestiltskin was his frame, and the way it was almost as if they had been perfectly engineered for each other in size. She and the Doctor, on the other hand, look like a circus act.

"You look like a giant next to me!" Belle giggles. The Doctor sniffs indignantly.

"Well, you look like a child!" he scoffs, straightening his tie. Belle rolls her eyes at him and latches onto his forearm, dragging him the remaining distance to the long glowing bar stretching the length of one side of the room.

The bartender is something of a marvel, several of his eight or so arms pouring and mixing drinks and carefully pushing them towards their respective patrons without ever spilling a drop. The Doctor saunters up to the bar and gives a lightning-fast wave of his fingers, which apparently indicates his order. Within a matter of moments, two luminous beverages are slid towards them across the top of the bar – one for each of them.

The drinks glow a fluorescent blue that seems to pulse and dance under the stark white light of the observation room. Belle eyes the drinks warily, and the Doctor notices her hesitance.

"Drink up," he advises. "They're safe, I promise!" He makes a show of crossing his heart solemnly and she resists the urge to roll her eyes at him again.

Nevertheless, she raises her glass, and he raises his, clinking them together. A few heads turn at the seemingly strange, Old Earth tradition, but neither of them notice. Belle, for one, is far too mesmerised by the foreign flavours dancing across her tongue.

"This is delicious!" she says enthusiastically. "It's like cream and berries and... some kind of melon..."

The Doctor acknowledges her statement with a high-pitched, "Mmm!" He too relishes the feeling of fruity flavours in his mouth, and the fizz of bubbles in his nose. So as not to guzzle the whole thing in one go, he pulls the glass slightly away from his lips. "That's right. That type of melon is native to the Cosima region of the galaxy. The whole cluster, from Cosima 1 through 5, is the right distance from the nearest sun to grow them. On they're own, they're bitter, but - " He's interrupted by Belle's giggling, though she tries to muffle it with her hand.

"What're you-" the Doctor begins with a confused expression before catching sight of his reflection in the side of his glass, and more prominently, the rather dashing liquid moustache running the length of his upper lip. Belle's suppressed giggles turn into a fully-fledged laughing fit at just how ridiculous he looks before it's suddenly gone with a quick indignant swipe of his lip. She swiftly regains control of her laughter.

"I thought it suited me," he sniffs, and she just grins.

"Fifteen minutes until the passing of Cosima. Thank you for your time," the cool voice sounds once more. Belle tugs at the Doctor's sleeve.

"Come on, I want to get a good view!" she says, nudging him towards the crowd. He follows obediently along, wondering idly just when it was that he'd allowed his travelling companions to start leading him around, like a puppy by its leash. Probably right about-

Don't go there, his mind warns, shaking off images of blonde hair and bright, curious eyes.

Belle finds them an excellent position in the crowd, close to the front but not quite in the first row. Her small hands grip at his forearm expectantly and he chances a look downward to find the petite brunette's gaze wide and eager, her teeth worrying her bottom lip in excited anticipation. His hearts twinge a little at the expression of wonder on her features; this is why he does what he does, he thinks. This is why he chooses humans to bring with him on his adventures, because there is only so much of the universe he can explore before it begins to become tiresome and old. That way he is able to see it through their gaze, the fantastic and beautiful things out there, new all over again through a fresh pair of eyes.

It makes him feel old sometimes.

Belle blinks a little. "That drink went to my head pretty fast," she says, bringing her fingers to her temple. The Doctor notices that he too is feeling slightly lightheaded.

"They're just a little stronger here, nothing to worry about," he responds, brushing her off, even though a voice in the back of his mind tells him that there may indeed be. Fortunately, that voice is easily ignored.

The Doctor returns to watching Belle watch the night skies with that lovely awestruck expression. He's not surprised, to be quite honest; it is a magnificent view. They're right in the centre of the Cosima cluster, two of the five planets visible to the naked eye just outside of the absurdly large observation pane. His gaze shifts between the dewy pink cloud of Cosima II to the raging volcanic storms of IV, noting how they seem almost close enough to touch, like marbles floating in a sea of glowing stars. He watches Belle's fingers twitch idly at her side, knowing that she too shares his same impulse to reach out and touch them herself.

Rather than staining the glassy wall with her fingertips - the only thing standing between her and the endless stretch of starlight - Belle reaches for the Doctor, her tiny hand dwarfed by his long, thin, but gentle fingers. He takes her hand gratefully and weaves her fingers with his, something akin to wistfulness present on his features.

"Ten minutes until the passing of Cosima. Thank you for your time," rattles in the background.

"So is this something you do often, Doctor?"

The alien in question blinks at the sudden inquiry.

"Is what?" he responds, puzzled. Belle nudges his side with a sly smile.

"Oh you know... kidnapping women and whisking them away in your magic box to show them all the wonders of the universe," she says, eyes sparkling as they look up to meet his.

The Doctor adjusts his tie and swallows. "Nope, nothing of the sort," he answers without making eye contact. After a few seconds he notices that Belle is still staring defiantly at him, a challenging smile gracing her features. He decides to resign, accepting defeat. "I... may have gotten in the habit of... weeelll, once or twice but..."

Belle beams her victory. "Ah ha! So I'm not the first," she determines proudly. "Now I have to hear about these other girls, you know. All of... the little... d-details..." Belle suddenly trails off vaguely, blinking rapidly as if attempting to will her eyes to stay in focus. His concern grows stronger when he notices she's also swaying slightly on the spot.

"D-Doctor," Belle stammers weakly, hand resting on her stomach. "I'm really not feeling good."

He reaches out to touch her, but his clumsy hand only grasps air and he stumbles, and that's when the Doctor figures out that he's in fact also feeling a lot worse than he'd previously thought. He too begins to blink, slowly, shapes blurring in and out like watercolour paints on the outskirts of his vision.

"Oh blimey this isn't... good..." he tries to say, but it's like trying to speak underwater, the pressure flooding his lungs. He attempts once again to reach out to Belle but only just manages to brush his hand through her curls. Part of him hopes she at least finds the gesture a little bit reassuring.

"Doc...tor..." he hears her murmur faintly in the background before he watches her knees hit the floor through swirling vision.

And that's the last thing he sees before he too collapses into strong arms, and the world begins to fade to black.

"Five minutes until the passing of Cosima," he barely hears, the voice now a discordant, demonic laughter inside his head. "Thank you for your time, Doctor."


	3. Chapter 3

The Doctor wakes to a dull throbbing in the centre of his skull. Drowsily, he rolls onto his side, feeling for his sonic, for a hand, for _something _familiar. His shoulder aches when weight is pressed against it, and he winces. As his vision clears, he reaches up and touches the sore spot, feeling for the ache of a newly formed bruise, which he finds right on the edge of his left shoulder bone.

The light is dim around him and he squints his eyes in order to make out any characteristics that could inform him of his current location. At the moment, all he can make out are bricks, towering high above him, high enough that he can't quite make out the ceiling. One of the walls is a solid pane of glass, similar to the one at the observation deck, though he is unable to discern anything further beyond it. It's then that the Doctor's gaze falls upon a heap in the corner, one that moves in the same sluggish, heavy way that he is. Chestnut curls are strewn across the dusty floor, and he feels a pang of regret for the companion that he's endangered. Just one in a list of many, he supposes.

From across the room, he hears Belle take in a shaky breath, and he realises that if he can barely make out her shape, her human eyes must be seeing nothing but blackness right now. The thought concerns him.

_"D-Doctor?" _he hears her murmur, hands pawing blindly across the floor. "Are you there?"

Forgetting the pain in his shoulder and his general drowsiness, he rolls onto his knees, half-upright, reaching out. "I'm here, Belle. Follow my voice. Just follow it."

Her hand finds his in the darkness, and despite the dreadful circumstances, he smiles. "There you go. You okay?"

"Yeah," she laughs shakily. "Not my first time in a cell."

Though he suspects there's a great story there, he doesn't enquire further, though makes a mental note to perhaps bring it up later. If later were to ever arrive.

"I don't suppose you have any idea where we are, then?"

"'fraid not," he answers, scratching the back of his head. He can't even find his sonic to cast a little more light. "No idea how long we were out, either. Could've been days."

She sighs, drawing her knees to her torso. "I should have told him where I was going," she whispers. The sudden thought of her wasting away here in the dark, a million miles away from home, her love never knowing what had happened to her, hits her in the chest like a freight train.

"Him?"

"My, um ..." She doesn't know how to phrase it; there is no singular word to describe Rumplestiltskin. "... boyfriend, I guess." Belle frowns at the naive, youthful term. It doesn't seem right on her lips.

"You guess?"

She chews her bottom lip in thought. "Would 'True Love' be too ridiculous a term?"

He laughs softly. "Not at all. _Well_, maybe. Bit of a myth, really."

"You don't believe in True Love, Doctor?" Belle asks, looking a little hurt.

"It's just…" he tries to recover, noting her expression. "I've travelled too far and wide for all that. Circumstances shape the way people are far too much for the Universe to decide that there's _one _perfect person for everyone; for that mythical red string to be attached from birth. Even…" he hesitates. "Even if two people _were _meant to be together, who says the Universe'll let them at all?" He's lost in thought now, having rambled his way into a memory. Belle reaches over and touches his knee empathetically, and he's startled by how well she reads him. "I mean, don't get me wrong, there's _love, _and I believe in that. Greatest force on Earth, that."

"Or any realm," Belle adds with a smile. He smiles back at her, not pondering long on the peculiar choice of word. "Who was she, Doctor?"

He puffs out his cheeks and runs a hand through his unruly hair, not sure he's ready for this conversation. "Not so much a 'was' as an 'is'…"

"Oh," she falters. "Then, why aren't you with her?"

The Doctor feels his pulse speed up. He hasn't thought about it in such simple terms in a long time.

"I'm sorry, Doctor. That was pretty forward of me. I just love a good story."

"Well, if it's a story you want, we had a hell of a time." A nostalgic smile crosses his face.

"What happened?"

"Come on, Belle. You can't start from the end."

"Maybe it's not the end."

He thinks it over, running his tongue over his lips. His head still throbs from earlier. "Circumstance. Circumstance happened. Pesky little bugger. You'd like her, though, I bet. She's brave, like you. Capable of more than she could ever imagine. These eyes you could just lose yourself in…Rose, is her name."

"Rose," Belle tries, smiling. "Pretty."

"Yeah," he replies, staring at the ground. Belle had been talking about the name, but she's not so sure he is.

There's a lull, and he bites the inside of his cheek. If he knows one thing from all his years of travelling, it's that love can do wonders. It can save a life. It can save a million lives. It can even mend the hearts of a war-torn wanderer. But it can also damage them beyond repair.

"Anyway, it's not like I gave you a chance.

"Hm?"

"To say goodbye. I never do. Far too impatient. One of my faults."

She doesn't reply. The Doctor can't see her eyes clearly enough to read her, but hearing a shaky exhale, he wonders if she might be crying. He's struck with a sudden determination, resolve settling over him like a storm cloud. He's not going to let anything happen to Belle; he can't. Not this time, not again, not after-

"Belle, I swear I'll get you out of here. If it's the last thing I do, I'll get you home safe," he says sternly. He sees her lift her head to face him in the dark.

"Thank you, Doctor," she says, fiercely holding back tears. _Do the brave thing, _she tells herself. But she doesn't know what the brave thing _is_, not when she's stuck inside a cell. Grounded, sealed in, she is useless, though she wishes she wasn't. Silently, she promises herself that she will be her own hero, and that she will not reservedly accept whatever fate approaches her next.

Though it does seem to be approaching her rather quickly, she thinks as the doors to their cell burst open. Belle pushes her body back against the rough, cold wall, and beside her, she feels the Doctor's body tense, instinctively reaching for his pocket but finding nothing.

Harsh light pours in through the open doorway, through which a creature in shadow appears. Opening her mouth to speak, Belle finds she has no need, because the Doctor is already in full hostage negotiation mode.

"Just tell us what you want," he implores, hands outstretched in surrender. "Maybe I can help you. There's no need to hurt us."

The creature, whatever it may be, makes a sound that resembles a low, rumbling laugh, causing the hairs on Belle's arms to stand on end. Yet it doesn't speak a word, and somehow that is infinitely more terrifying than anything it possibly could have said. Belle reflexively leans closer to the Doctor, inwardly chastising herself for the fear she feels coursing through her body. In that respect, she wishes she were more like the alien man; strong and fearless even in the face of immediate danger. He's like the hero that fights so selflessly against evil in the books she loves, and right now she's feeling more like the useless damsel in distress.

All of a sudden, Belle feels a strong force draw her to her feet against her will, though nothing touches her physically. It tugs at the back of her mind, lurching her body forward as if it were being controlled by puppet strings. Her feet begin to move obediently, carrying her out of the cell one foot after another, and she can hear from the reluctant shuffling beside her that the Doctor is being forced to move as well.

"Doctor," she gasps, trying to resist the pull.

"Don't fight it, Belle, just walk. I'm right here with you," he responds as gently as he can under duress.

Once outside the dank cell, stark white light burns Belle's retinas so much so that even as she's forced to scrunch her eyes shut, tears leak out the edges. Whether they're truly just from the brightness of the light or not, she isn't sure. She forces herself to wrench her eyes open and let them adjust, so that she can at least gather some idea of what her captors look like.

They appear to be in some kind of corridor, Belle quickly surmises, blinking ferociously. She can feel the Doctor's presence at her side, and it's comforting if anything, but from what she can tell, whatever is leading them walks ahead. She attempts to focus on it.

Her gaze drifts in the opposite direction.

Frustrated, Belle tries once again to get a look at their kidnapper. All she's able to see is flickering and a blur, and noise like television static fills her ears before her eyes are once more forced to float in a different direction, relocating the shape to her peripheral vision. Her head begins to throb in pain.

"Stop trying to look at it, Belle, it's not there."

Belle snaps her head toward the Doctor.

"What do you _mean _it's not there? Of course it's there!" she huffs.

The Doctor scratches the back of his head as they continue down the seemingly endless corridor. "Weeeelll... in a manner of speaking, yes. But it's also not."

"Doctor, if you don't stop talking in riddles, I promise I am going to hit you. _Really_ hard."

"Right. Sorry," he amends quickly. "Whatever that creature is doesn't have a physical form. It's running off energies projected from some kind of larger power source... but I can't tell where from. It isn't even completely sentient, so it can't tell we're talking about it, but it has to have some kind of telepathic power because I can feel it rummaging around in my head." He stops for a second, brows knitted together in thought. "Feels really weak though, like it isn't even sure exactly what it's looking for... more of a scan than anything... wonder why it's doing that..." The Doctor trails off into silence and Belle lets him, realizing that somewhere along the way he'd stopped talking to her and begun simply voicing his rambling thought trail aloud.

All of a sudden, the force yanking them obediently forward pulls them to an abrupt stop in front of two identical doors in the wall.

The Doctor turns and looks at her with panicked eyes, knowing what this means, and she stares back, terrified. "I'll get us out of here, Belle!" he shouts quickly, the last thing she hears before she's shoved roughly through one of the doorways and the Doctor disappears through the other. Quickly, she regains her balance, ready to combat whatever danger is about to come her way.

And Belle finds herself face to face with Rumplestiltskin.

* * *

><p>The Doctor is greeted with something he hadn't been expecting after being so roughly thrown into the room: he is greeted with a smile. Albeit, a gruesomely smug smile, but a smile still the same, emanating from a surprisingly youthful face. A young man, at least half-human, pale flesh embedded with patches of coloured blemishes - the mark of a not-so-seamless blending of genetic material. A crop of dark hair rests atop his head, and small, beady eyes stare intently at the Doctor, observing him carefully like a bird of prey. The grin on the boy's face only grows in size, exposing teeth that appear to have been sharpened to gleaming points, whether by genetics or hand. He leans casually against the back wall of the otherwise empty room, a stark contrast between his dark attire and the blank white paint.<p>

"The Doctor! Oh, it's really you!" he exclaims gleefully, hands clapping together with joy. "Oh this is excellent, just _marvellous _really. You've no idea how long I've been waiting for this moment. I might just shed a tear." The boy mimes wiping said tear from the corner of one of his birdlike eyes.

"What have you done with Belle?" is the first question to leave the Doctor's lips, as he glares expressionlessly in the overgrown man-child's direction. He titters, clearly unimpressed.

"Now, now," the boy says smoothly. "That's hardly of any importance now, is it?" His beady eyes narrow slightly, but the unsettling grin does not leave his face, reminding him of a twisted Cheshire cat. "All will be revealed in due course."

Deciding that he is evidently not going to get a proper response to the question, the Doctor tries a different approach. "Who are you?" he asks instead. The boy waves off the comment disinterestedly, but pushes himself off the wall with his hands to pace slowly toward the Doctor. Now that he's closer, the Doctor can see that he's shorter than previously thought, the top of his head barely reaching his tenth regeneration's chest.

"Oh, I'm nothing interesting," he says coolly, his voice almost a purr. "Let's talk about you! The famous _Doctor... _last of the Time Lords." There's a touch of _something _in his tone that the Doctor can't quite place just yet, something that feels almost like a dangerous kind of cynicism. He's never seen this man before in his life- in any of his lives. Yet it seems his capture was very deliberate, and the only question left is _why_.

"I'm sure you're far more interesting," the Doctor presses, attempting to switch the subject back to the stranger.

"Oh?" He stops a few feet short of the Doctor. "Well, if that were true, I would've spent my entire life hearing tales of my _own_ heroics and genius, rather than all of yours. You and your... _TARDIS_, flying haphazardly about the universe _doing good_ and _changing worlds_." He rocks back and forward on his heels gleefully, and had the Doctor been anyone else, he probably would have been frightened by the display. Fortunately, he is in fact a Time Lord, and Time Lords have better things to do than be afraid of little bird-boys with height complexes.

"So why haven't you?" he asks instead, hands flexing into fists.

_"Beside the point!"_ he snaps quickly, eyes flashing with something dangerous before being replaced by a cool mask of total composure. He begins pacing circles around the Doctor, like a jungle cat. "You know, my father claimed to have encountered you once."

_Rassilon, here we go, _the Doctor thinks. _Unresolved daddy issues._

"The rest of us never heard the end of it, naturally," he continues. "'You may be clever, my boy,' he'd say, 'but not as clever as the Doctor.' Never as brave, or sharp, or cunning as his precious _Doctor._ Never as _powerful._ Well..." His grotesque smile widens. "We'll just have to see about that now, won't we?"

The Doctor's tolerance for the boy's silly games begins to wear thin.

_"Who. Are. You?" _he presses through gritted teeth. "Tell me your name."

The boy giggles. Yes, _giggles. _"You always did love your names, didn't you? Doctor, Doctor, _Doctor._ Healer of worlds," he mocks, before face becomes stony. "Destroyer of his own kind."

The Doctor's expression hardens even more.

"You want to give me a name? How about 'The Scholar'? Rather fitting title, don't you think? Seeing as despite what _some _people may believe, I'm every bit as intelligent as you. Every bit as wise and strong and _powerful._ Perhaps even more... most likely even more."

He doesn't respond, totally caught off guard by the sheer arrogance of the man who called himself 'the Scholar.'

"You see, _Doctor,_" he continues, pacing back and forth, reciting something that, frankly, seems a little rehearsed. "It appears my father was right. You are clever, and I do respect that, I do. Knowledge is power after all, and power is what man inherently seeks. But you misuse your intelligence. You allow your emotions to overcome you, making you far less clever than you could potentially be."

"What is it that you want from me?" the Doctor sighs, suddenly bone tired. "Information? Guidance? Technology? What could you possibly want that demands all... _this?_" He gestures to the barren interrogation room around him.

"I seek nothing from you, Doctor." The Scholar stops, seemingly pondering something. "Although now that you mention it, a TARDIS wouldn't be such a terrible acquisition after all. To exist outside of space and time is... a power that ought only be bestowed on the most intelligent of beings, a title of which I shall prove worthy." He brushes his hair idly with his fingers, puffing his chest out fractionally. The action reminds the Doctor of a peacock preening its feathers. He's hit with a sudden wariness.

"And just how do you plan on doing that?" _Ah, the old 'trick-the-arrogant-bad-guy-into-revealing-his-entire-evil-scheme' tactic. 99.9% effective,_ the Doctor thinks vaguely.

"I will prove it, with a little test that I've devised. If you pass, you go free. But you won't," he sniffs. "If - _when_ - you fail... well, the effects of the testing should take care of the burden you refer to as your sanity. You and your little companion shall remain my pets."

"You kidnapped us to prove a point?" the Doctor responds angrily.

The Scholar merely pushes up his sleeve and touches a button on a contraption strapped to his wrist. A beam of green light erupts from the device and then suddenly a projection is displayed on a nearby wall. It's Belle, backed up against a door. It looks as though she's talking to someone, but she claws hopelessly at empty air.

"It's amazing how incredibly easy it is to distort reality within the mind," says a smug voice behind him.

The Doctor clenches his teeth and his nostrils flare with anger. "What have you done to her?" he demands, all quiet fury.

"Look again, Doctor. What do you see? Or, perhaps more accurately, what do you _not _see?"

He takes a closer look at the projection, and suddenly that blurred, flickering space makes itself apparent to him once more, drawing his gaze away from it against his own will.

"What are they?"

"Creatures of my own invention," the Scholar states proudly. "A digital existence, feeding off the ceaseless power of human emotion. Incidentally, that is also their weapon. You can't talk your way out of this one with your clever words, Doctor; there's nothing there to empathise with."

On the wall, projection-Belle's eyes begin to fill with tears, as whatever she's looking at manipulates her mental and emotional state.

"If you're as clever as my father always said, then you'll figure out a way to destroy it," says the Scholar airily as he approaches the door. "If not, then good luck, Doctor. You'll be needing it."

With an arrogant air, he leaves the room, and the projection of Belle disintegrates into atoms. The Doctor can feel the rummaging in his brain again, low-level consciousness scanning his mind for _something, _though he can't tell what. It is a busy and cluttered place inside his head. He turns away from the door, only to stop dead in his tracks.

The TARDIS stands before him, tall and gleaming and proud as ever.

The Doctor guffaws happily. His girl had managed to find him after all! Though... he's not exactly sure where he is. What feels like a dense fog settles over his mind and he tries desperately to remember... something... He was definitely meant to be fighting something. Or saving someone. He's not quite sure. Anyway, all that really matters is that his TARDIS is with him, safe and secure and very, _very _blue. He strokes the outside wood affectionately before opening the doors to welcome himself home. And then his blood runs cold.

Facing the Doctor are three identical walls, blank and blue and utterly lifeless.


End file.
